#spread the souls spread the sculk

[entropyvoid]

Obsessed with whatever Cub has going on right now

I hope he just goes back to the Hermitcraft server and is Like That for the rest of the season and no one else on the server says anything about it

[savviathan]

cub saying that he needs more “souls” (via the soul lanterns and torches) for the fog. Right so. Did. Did the fog take his soul or

[boatemboys]

actually ill post this here too im working on my martyn design and hes a little warden fella

[joifee]

how 'bout a picture with corrupted Shelby and corrupted Cubfan? I thought it would be interesting since.. y'know, they are both corrupted. sorry if this isn't the kind of request your looking for just wanted to see if you could! thanks!

spread the sculk, collect the souls

I am still a huge fan of sculk cub and sculk shubble - such great villain aura

[elven-kisses]

(tv producer voice) and remember folks, spread the souls, spread the sculk

[theminecraftbee]

i always love when cub is doing a story bit because so often it’s the world’s most concerning thing while also, simultaneously, being treated as the most casual thing in the world. he’s just like. oh yeah hey there. so i was taken by the fog and told to spread sculk and souls everywhere. yeah exactly it is a bold new direction. yeah this corruption stuff is pretty neat right. well nice to see you, all hail the sculk, etc etc. bye,

[tibby-art]

I had the weirdest dream where sculked cub was looking at me with his big ol' eyes and handing me a sculk catalyst and started saying "Spread the souls and spread the sculk" profusely.

what color binder did he have on though

[felidaefighter]

I desperately want to talk about The Warden and my theory about it.

The sculk is a type of mold that canonically absorbs souls. I am pretty sure the reason there is soulfire torches and campfires in Ancient Cities is not because of soul sand, but because the skulk and the souls it absorbs corrupted the pre-existing fires.

The Warden appears from the sculk, distraught. You can see souls swarming around in turmoil around it. When it dies, it drops only a catalyst.

The Warden is an amalgamation, not arising but rather forming. The souls were never laid to rest, they were absorbed into the sculk, all life drained from the area. But the souls of the dead remain. The souls that were trapped in the city, trapped in the mold. And they hear you.

Leave, they scream. This place is corrupted. And when they are certain you have left and not spread corruption to the outside world, they sigh and return to their ever-unrest. Because they were never anything but restless souls and sculk.

[shadeswift99]

SHADE. Shade I need your minecraft worldbuilding brain.

They introduced a bunch of new shards to 1.20. The one depicting the Warden is called "mourner."

THE POSSIBILITIES?? It's not just guarding these ancient cities, it's mourning what they once were? Maybe it's similar to an iron golem, a construct built to protect and then abandoned? Maybe it caused the ruination and it mourns what it destroyed? Maybe it's just cranky we disturbed it????

I really like all of those ideas! But, as is my duty as Shade, I am going to introduce you to an extra and more horrifying possibility!

So. Sculk. It's a fungus-like corruption that spreads when it's fed by XP, which is essentially souls or life energy in-universe released at the death or breaking of something. No mobs other than the Warden can spawn in the Deep Dark, which to me suggests sculk has a level of toxicity that even the undead can't handle. Except some people - players - seem to be able to withstand it, at least for a short period of time.

There sure is a lot of sculk in ancient cities, isn't there. A whooole lotta sculk. Whole lot of that stuff that duplicates through death of other living things.

Maybe the cities were full, when the first sculk was discovered. Maybe the toxicity claimed the first person to find it and spread as a result of that, the danger growing the more it took, until it was a wave few could escape. Maybe some got away through those odd portals, the ones with higher natural resistances lasting long enough to flee. ...Or, maybe some of them, left alive long enough to watch everyone else die, couldn't bring themselves to leave. Maybe they stayed to mourn the loss, exposing themselves for longer than even they could withstand. Maybe instead of dying, they changed.

The Warden has the same size hitbox as a player. In spite of visually far exceeding that size, it can fit through the same size gaps. Almost as if it outgrew the volume the Universe had calculated for it. And its ribcage, open and filled with sculk-like texture inside, has always read as human-like to me. The sculk controls it, so the body tries to kill living things to fuel the spread. It's only natural.

But maybe, like the cordyceps fungus, the sculk leaves the brain intact while bending the muscles of the body to its own purposes. Perhaps the Warden's eyes are closed because the mourner is still mourning - the loss of their city, still, or what they lost of themselves by not turning away.

[foxxology]

In it spreads, does Grian have trouble seeing and mostly relies on hearing? And does he have the Warden abilities? Like the blast and be summoned from the skulk or hide and move through it.

Yes actually! As he becomes more Warden like, his vision is getting worse and bright light hurts the eyes. His hearing is spectacular, especially in ancient cities.

He's not a proper Warden yet, so no fun sonic blasts or fast travel through sculk. It's kind of hard to become one when you've got extra luggage on your soul, preventing that transformation. :P

[flyingraven]

My updated MCYT fanfic worldbuilding!

Both for anyone who’s interested in how I imagine the minecraft sphere so to speak works and for linking to my ao3 page, here is my MCYT worldbuilding! Long post ahead! I've been working on this for a long time and it's actively being worked on as well, but here's the current version!

Gods and sentient beings 

Basic information

Only multiple gods together or one of the elder gods can truly kill a god. Lesser beings (demigods or a single other god) could kill their vessel but not destroy their seat so to speak. When their vessel is killed their essence just kind of floats around the deep void until they find a next suitable vessel. This act of seemingly killing a god and taking part of their power is referred to as diminishing them. 

Respawns and souls

You can generally respawn infinitely, but it slowly eats away at your soul. And at some point you don’t respawn anymore. This is generally the same as dying of old age, but it’s not uncommon for very heavy pvp players to die younger because their soul is ruined by continuous respawns. 

When your soul hits a certain point of damage it passes on into Kristin’s domain. This is where souls recover and combine into new souls, which is how new players are made/born. 

Good gods 

There was at least one being called the Elder God. They created the other gods and the prime players. These days they have disappeared, and nobody seems to know where they are. 

Kristin is the goddess of Life and Death. But most mortals only see and refer to her as the Goddess of Death. She along with many of the other gods were created by the two elder gods. She resides over the domain of life and death. Watching over souls as they recover, get born, slowly tear apart and return to her eventually. 

Her main adversary is the god of Chaos. She’s not a fan of the Watchers either, because their grey morals grate against hers. Phil is an ex Watcher, but defected and joined Kristin. They fell in love. Most of Kristin's angels were originally mortals. On very rare occasions, when someone died in a certain way which really captures her attention she might decide to ask them to join her ranks. This is how Scott became an angel of hers. A few of her angels are kids of other angels. 

Evil gods

Evil gods are evil as currently defined by human/Kristin's definition.

 The god of the demons is the god of chaos. Has been diminished once or twice before. This is why he can only create demons with the power level of Watchers instead of demons at the level of demigods. Maybe there's just more demons than angels which would give him the appearance of having more people under his control, thus appearing to be as powerful as Kristin even though they would not be. Makes sense as demons can also possess people and thus hide among mortals. Maybe angels need Kristin's power to detect possession which would account for why Phil can't detect Dream.

The god who ascended Techno. The original bloodgod, and when Techno "killed" him (killed his vessel with the help of Phil cuz who else, which diminished his power and spread some of it to Techno) He took on the title of the blood god, even though he technically is only a demigod, not a true god. He was ascended Techno to groom him into his next vessel. Unfortunately he didn’t account on Techno becoming friends with the Angel of Death. 

The god of Corruption. Ties into the sculk. With the elder gods being gone he weaved a web of corruption until he managed to sneak it in into the next update behind the back of the good gods.

Demigods

Ascension 

Any god can ascend a mortal to become a demigod. But it's a violent act and will usually completely kill off the world the former mortal was inhabiting. And it hurts. A lot. The combination of these factors is what made Eret's ascension so bad. Because usually the newly ascended demigod will wake up with their god. But Eret didn't. They woke up alone in a dead realm.

Cults can try to get a gods attention to get them to ascend one of their own to demigod status. Really, no good gods will respond to these rituals. They usually involve mass sacrifice. 

Gods can also just choose to ascend a living mortal, but again, this is not often done and when it is, usually only by evil gods. That's what happened to Techno.

Kristin works in a different way. When mortals die she sometimes (very rarely) offers them to become one of her angels. Her angels are demigods, but due to being in her service they are referred to as angels.

Demons are demigods aligned to the god of Chaos.

Banishment

Banishment of a demigod only works if the demigod is on a physical plane like a world, the void or the deep void. If a demigod is in the inbetween however… funky shit happens. The effects can vary. But total amnesia of the targeted demigod is one of them.

Watchers, voidwalkers, prime players

A representation of one of the highest ranked Watchers (drawing by @the-uk-is-jk)

The Watchers were at war with the Voidwalkers for a while. It ended when the Watchers massacred them. Xisuma and EX are considered to be the only survivors. Watchers are creatures that were created by the elder gods with the sole purpose of watching the worlds they created. This would mean they were maybe created before the gods, and just kind of stuck around after. They possess strong powers of code manipulation. Junior Watchers, or Watchers in training have purple wings. Full Watchers have purely white wings. Elder Watchers have multiple. The highest ranked Watchers don’t bother to maintain a humanoid form, instead existing purely as beings made of eyes and wings. They are feared by most mortals. 

Voidwalkers are beings that lived in the End. They were also created by the Elder gods, kind of as an experiment before they created the prime players. They were at war with the Watchers until they got massacred by them. Hoping something to End and Aether is a Voidwalker expression, though older immortals have been known to sometimes adopt it as well.

Prime players were the first players created by the Elder Gods. It’s unknown how many there are, since they tend to stay in hiding. What sets prime players apart from normal players is that respawns have no effect on their souls and that they don’t age. Meaning they are functionally immortal. There are ways to kill them, but no normal mortal could easily get them to stay down so to speak. 

Players

Players can become admins through training. Not everybody has the natural aptitudes to become an admin. Everyone can access the code of the world if they learn how to, but utilising it wrong can be the end of someone. Admins have the power to create worlds. Everyone above the power level of a normal player can. The difference is that some beings (Watchers) make the choice to not do this. Gods and some demigods reside in their personal worlds with practically impenetrable firewalls. The more powerful a being the more control they have over creating worlds and the less likely they are to make mistakes. 

Worlds

At it’s core worlds, players and everything else are code. Code is the foundation of everything. 

Worlds are generally connected to hubworlds. Travelling to other worlds usually happens through these. Hubworlds can vary from simple planes with rows and rows of portals to massive cities where people live, interspersed with portals. It’s not uncommon for kids to get dumped on hubworlds to fend for themselves. They often end up banding together, since hubworlds are pretty often fairly hostile places to live in due to the lack of admin oversight. Kids like this are generally called children of the hub. 

Hubworlds take a lot of power to create and to keep safe. They are usually created by a whole group of admins. 

Besides travelling through official portals there are ways to jump to other worlds. This is why you can protect your worlds with whitelists. They take the form of physical barriers in the code surrounding worlds. Think of it like a satellite defence system around a planet, combined with a literal wall of fire in some cases. Worldhoppers are players who make a habit of jumping from world to world without portals. Often these are players who grew up in the hub and learned admin magic through other people. They basically break into other worlds and thus aren’t always seen as the best people. Most worldhoppers are friendly though. Hubkids often end up worldhopping, at least during their teenage years until they find a place to settle down or until a mistake tears their soul apart. 

Sometimes worlds connect themselves to each other through rifts. Nobody knows how these occur, and they can’t really be controlled. Maybe gods could control them, but nobody below them. 

There is something called being worldlocked. Its generally something the Watchers do to worlds as a punishment. It involves messing with the code of the world and all the people on it. Leaving them unable to leave the world and unable to contact anyone outside of it. A lot of locked worlds eventually devolve into chaos due to the isolation, with people turning on each other. Dream worldlocked the DreamSMP. 

Improper coding of a world can lead to the world getting corrupted. What happens to corrupted worlds varies, but generally they completely destroy themselves and everyone on it. EVO got corrupted, less due to Grian making mistakes but more due to being an experimental world surrounded by experimental worlds that were corrupted. The Watchers helped the process along as a punishment for Grian. 

Hardcore worlds are worlds that lock you out when you die. You simply can’t enter them anymore, only view them through your communicator. Dying in them is also way harder on your soul, so players are weary of playing in them too much. 

On "space"

Space is kind of the Void. You have the void in which world reside. But if you keep flying up you will not hit the true void. Your would simply slow down. The stars are other realms visible in the void.

The void and the deep void

The Voidwalkers lived in the void before they were all killed by the Watchers. 

The void is split between two almost subrealms? You have the void layer which contains normal, player made/controlled worlds and the layer that contains the end. Called the high void and the low void? Names are a work in progress. The membrane between the high void and the low void is fairly thin, which is why end portals are an easy way to access it. 

The Watchers reside in the deep void. Which is almost inaccessible to normal players. To get to it you need to travel through the inbetween. 

The inbetween

The inbetween is the space between the void and the deep void. It is incredibly hard to access, and even harder to competently navigate. Normal mortals would simply tear their soul apart trying if they recklessly attempted to do so. Gods have limited influence in this realm.

On exorcising players

Sometimes players can get overtaken by things. Vexes are the most common, though there are other things. Glitched “networks” like mycelium or more recently, the sculk that was added by the god of chaos in an update. 

Zooming in more on the Vex. The Vex aren't fully sentient like players or more-than-players are. But they aren’t quite mobs either. They exist in a space between categories, but have a strong desire to achieve… more. The way they try to achieve this is by trying to possess vulnerable players. They don’t often succeed, but when they do they will try to take over servers and hubworlds. They kind of function like a computer virus. Overtaking a player and ‘overlapping’ their code with their own Vex code manipulation. 

Sculk and Mycelium work a little differently. They are more so connected through a hivemind. A sculk block is the same as a warden is the same as a shrieker is the- you get the point. The sculk is not an individual block. And it has one goal. To spread. To overtake more of a world. To overtake more players. Similar to Vex it will latch on to a player and ‘overlap’ their code with its own. 

Exorcising players from any type of possession is possible, but a nasty process. First of all it requires someone with at powers at least akin to a voidwalker or a prime player. Then they basically have to tear the Vex, sculk or mycelium from the player line by line. Piece by piece. And it hurts. Especially when the player regains enough awareness to recognise that they are being hurt by someone they know, but not why or how. Removing sculk can leave scars akin to burn scars. 

[limelocked]

having thoughts about the ancient city on this day

because like troy, this thing has layers

i got done with my observations in the flatworld and went to look at how it actually generates and ive learned this:

1 there is no wool from the original inhabitants (gray) outside of the heavily fortified walls and the hidden redstone room, that means no wool in the sauna, ice box, barracks, tall ruins etc

2 the creature in the statues is different from the warden, it looks like warden concept art but for our purposes thats not the warden, thats something else, if it was the warden then it wouldve been changed

3 the warden doesnt live here. let me rephrase that; in the deep dark dev diary video there was talk about how the sculk was like an organism and i think that tracks what with the catalyst eating the souls of the dead but that also means the following: sculk shriekers, not the ancient city, is what calls the warden, the warden defends the sculk not the city

oh lime, you say, why then be the ancient city covered in this fleshy moss

lemmi lay out the timeline

1 the ancient city people live in unwalled cities, or at least the walls dont look like they do now, the city centers as we see them today have three paths up to the.. dias? but only one is accessible due to the walls, they have some way to access the nether to get soul sand and they are very peculiar about refrigerating their items and keeping themselves clean.

there may have been a guardian mob like the iron golem for these people, one that had rounded ears

2 the sculk comes. how it arrives is unknown but it feeds on the dead and dying, it envelops blocks it likes and covers the rest in veins outside the flesh. the ancient people build walls that are insulated in wool, the walls are imposing and threatening in nature and divides the city into quarters, it cannot contain the spread, people still die. they start tinkering with redstone hoping to find something that stops the advance.

there may have been a construct like the iron golem that had its blocks enveloped by the sculk, its ears changed to antena

3

Death.

sculk by its nature is a sign that an area is no such place of honour. sculk by its very nature denotes the ancient city not as a historical landmark but as a graveyard covered with the corpses of its people.

eventually the people who lived there either die or relocate the cities are abandoned we mourn

there may have been a guardian of a city that is now a guardian of the flesh, a warden to a self made jail full of people that will die at the will of a hungry being so large and unknowable yet also so quietly peaceful

4 much later, the people who made the mineshafts (probably not following the age old proverb of never digging too deep) discover the ancient city and start exploring it with none of the caution that the late ancient people had. many die. they set up many camps and fortifications, it takes them a while to even learn that wool will save them. many die. soon they abandon whatever ideas they had about the city and either die or leave this cursed place full of death.

[murky-tannin]

Btw isn't it wild that Sculk spreads from souls? We know this because of the souls depicted in the shriekers and wardens, as well as the soul fire, soul lanterns, and soul torches in the deep dark. And most notably how when something dies near a catalyst, it's exp (or, in other words, soul) is used as a catalyst to spread the growth of sculk even further.

You know what else collects and uses souls as a catalyst for magic? Players. And you know who is famously adept at enchanting things? Badboyhalo. And post.

(will be including examples of minecraft's soul imagery in a reblog for anyone who hasn't picked up on this aspect of it's worldbuilding!

[bimbloop]

Spread the Souls,

Spread the Sculk.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Cubfan was cured of the Sculk, cleansed, returned to a normal form. He's fine. It's fine. The potions worked. But his hair is still blue at the edges and his eyes still flash with soul-light and as he talks to a fellow Hermit he can hear the souls of creepers screaming for destruction and vengeance and he can feel the burning desire to take those souls and bottle them and place them and destroy the lights and let the mobs spawn and die and spread, spread, spread the sculk- (1/2)

He is fine, most days. He is normal, most days. But sometimes...it isn't hurting anyone, when he goes to a cave far enough away to keep his secret keep the others safe, to a zombie spawner or a hoard of skeletons, and waits. He places a hand on the wall of the hole he dug and watches, reveling in the clatter and groan of the falling mobs behind him as the blue spreads up and up and out, setting the darkness shimmering. That's enough for today. No, one...one more minute. There. He really should be getting back. He is "cured", after all.

~ Mod Shade

[glowstone23b]

warden/ancient city thoughts …

Anicent cities aren’t actually cities, they’re actually massive temples instead that devoted themselves to a certain god (im not sure what god the old builders would worship akandk)

They laid many people to rest in those underground crypts, that a bit of their souls leaked out of the bodies and infected the glowing cave vines, resulting in a strange mutation of sculk

and as more people died and got places in those tombs,,, the more sculk spread

Eventually some worshippers caught notice of this and assumed it to be some gift from the gods, so they continued to add fuel to it, experimenting with it, etc, finding out that when a creature dies— instead of the soul ascending to an afterlife, it is instead pulled down by the sculk and merged into what was like a sentient hivemind of connected souls working together to become something akin to an organism

At some point, as evolution of the sculk furthered and sculk sensors formed, it eventually led to a sculk shrieker

and after worshippers activated it a couple times in a row,

It summoned the massive, blind hulking beast known as the warden. It harvested as many souls as it could from the worshippers as it chased after them, leaving no one in it’s wake, before retreating back into the biomass until the next time there is a significant amount of soul that alerts the shriekers once more

Ok mini rant story thing over. i like to think that sculk works in a weird sort of method

Catalyst farm and form the extra sculk needed to begin an infection —> sensors pick up on sounds made by noises that supposedly could be creatures with a soul —> shriekers sound a scream that helps determine if a warden should form —> warden harvests any nearby creatures to help the sculk spread. if killed, the warden drops a catalyst, so it can all begin again

The warden itself is a weird amalgamation of human souls stuck together fused with the sculk. the main reasoning for it being blind (other than cave animals usually being blind since low to zero light requires little need for eyes) is because detecting sound means a very high chance of something w soul

Sculk sickness …. Possibly a rare disease only picked up by deep miners. nasty no good and probably hurts as the sculk eats you from the inside out

Illagers came across the ancient cities and set up camp for a short amount of time to try and study the sculk . you can imagine what happened to them

[ i like to think every ‘living’ creature in minecraft has a soul. that keeps them alive and thinking and breathing and stuff. and undead mobs have soul residue which leaves them with very basic instincts or things they subconsciously remember how to do ITS A FUN THOUGHT ]

[ in my little au illagers love experimenting w souls . because the more you experiment the more messed up results you get (vexes being the fused collective of 2-3 allays, or creating abominations via sticking two different mob souls together… possibly how ravagers came to be since they look a bit like villagers that got turned into beasts . fun theorizing ]

Hey invention? Phanon? I love your mind, it's wonderful. Have a drawing!

I've never drawn a warden before, mostly because it's been very daunting, but I think I got it out the way I wanted it to!! Sculk itself is kind of like... a fungus-y tentacle-y mixture, and i got some inspiration from the devil's fingers fungus irl! Really cool, I suggest giving it a look-see.

In my head, sculk would start off kind of like little eggs or pips or... whatever those things are... there's a name for it, when a plant or a cell decides to split off to make a new plant or cell? Mitosis? Bulbs? Plantlets? There's a word I'm looking for. Anyways. They'd probably grow mini sculk bits off of more mature ones so they can drop off and spread on their own, kind of like some types of succulent if that makes sense? Which explains the little sticky-outy bits on the wardens' horn things. Man, there's gotta be proper terminology for this, my brain is not finding the right words today.

They'd release some sort of bioluminescence when disturbed, and have an almost tar-like substance produced to trap smaller mobs (spiders, bats, etc.) that happen to wander too close, akin to fly traps. It wouldn't work as well for humans, but it's not uncommon to have your foot tugged on by some sculk in the hopes it can digest you.

I went off "The warden itself is a weird amalgamation of human souls stuck together fused with the sculk" because it's FREAKING COOL, so !!! Yeah!! I've got some of the larger/longer sculk tendrils used as arms and 'fingers' in a sense, though they're not all that precise in use. It just opts to smack the heck out of people usually. The bones in the shoulders and feet I thought were really cool on the in-game design, so I feel that the sculk would grow around any sorts of bones it had access to to keep a more stable structure. Keeping yourself upright if you're a soft mass of plantiness/fungus-yness would be a little tough, I think. Also, keeping bones close to the sculk might make it easier to tether souls together? Who knows!

It'd be neat to see what types of matter the sculk would attach to to form a warden-- it could be enderman bones, for all we know! Big and long and short and stubby, and all of the bones are in the wrong places. Using femurs for toes, or ribs for arms... it'd definitely not be fun to see in person.

Sculk sickness sounds SO NEAT TOO!!! I imagine you might be able to inhale it, like spores? Since it feeds off of xp or souls, you just keep fueling it once you're infected whether you like it or not. Does it have any cure, or would you have to have some sort of surgery to try to remove the existing sculk from your body? That'd cause a heck of a lot of complications, if it were to block anything internally. Wild, but neat to theorize about.

And YES on the experimenting with souls thing! Especially with the update so vexes look a lot more like allays-- definitely experiment material. I wonder how many more mobs are out there that we haven't seen because they haven't been made yet? Just mish mashes of any sort of soul they could get their hands on, inhabiting a body that doesn't feel quite right. Kinda interesting!

Thank you for sharing as always ily you rule. Your theories slap, may your inventory be full of diamonds or something. May the Nether's fire guide your way, idk. More piglin-y, as per my blog, lol.